


like to make it bleed but you never cut through

by kimaracretak



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, F/F, Knifeplay, Light Somnophilia, Magic, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21596968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: "You," Delilah says, "are going to change the world."[ Delilah and Anna, before the dungeon. ]
Relationships: Delilah Briarwood/Anna Ripley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	like to make it bleed but you never cut through

**Author's Note:**

> [Delilah/Ripley: We breathe in a loose kind of unison. Our breathing / ripples the way oblivion does—routinely, across history’s face.](https://sapphicsunshower.dreamwidth.org/3015.html?thread=60103#cmt60103)

"You," Delilah says, "are going to change the world."

She spins the knife over the bedsheets, point down. There's a hole that doesn't quite meet the mattress carved in when she takes the knife back, blade first.

Anna doesn't reply. Of course she doesn't, she's asleep: corpse-still in Delilah's bed, still in her work clothes, the fingers of her remaining hand smeared with charcoal and residuum that will leave stains for weeks.

Delilah is growing to like stains. It's only the natural progression of her love of other types of marks, and the thought that it would horrify her old family brings her a special sort of joy.

She dips her fingertip into the green dust scattered across her sheet and sucks it into her mouth thoughtfully. A poor substitute for Anna's fingers, but almost enough. "Well," Delilah corrects herself after a moment, the taste of the residuum still glassy and sharp on her tongue. "I'm going to change the world. You're a very useful tool, though a handsome one."

It's the closest to praise she's offered Anna since they left Wildemount, and Delilah smiles at the thought that, if Anna were awake, she would hate it.

She rests the tip of the knife between Anna's breasts. She doesn't breathe, in her suspended sleep, no rise and fall of her chest to disturb the blade. If it slipped under her skin, it would be Delilah's choice alone.

She's considered it, more than once. Considers it again now, holding her breath so her own chest stills just like Anna's. They could never be mistaken for twins, nor even siblings, but in holding herself in the space between Anna's waiting breaths, Delilah feels closer to her than ever.

Delilah makes a face, flicks the knife hard enough that it slices cleanly through Anna's shirt and then, with less deliberation than she would admit, makes two more swift cuts through the fabric. They are not the same, there is no reason for them to be the same, and yet Anna's work is too bound up in hers for the suspicion to be too far from Delilah's thoughts.

Perhaps there should be more between them than the work. Perhaps there is, and the work is simply the only one that matters. That thought, Delilah rather likes.

She leans over and bites down hard on Anna's lip. Feels rather than sees blood welling from Anna's chest around the unmoving knife; tastes rather than sees the blood from Anna's mouth, iron and stagnant magic. Anna doesn't move.

"Time to wake up," Delilah says. She traces the contours of Anna's lips with her tongue, feels for the threads of the Weave tying her into sleep and unties them one by one. "Whitestone's past is coming back, and I have one more job for you."

Anna's eyes open, and Delilah pulls back enough that Anna can see her smile, and the knife. "Time to make our own history."

Anna reaches for the knife, and does not smile back.


End file.
